The eye, the window of the soul, is the chief means whereby the understanding can most fully and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of Nature; and the ear is second.

If you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. Let us hope that.

It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.

One painter ought never to imitate the manner of any other; because in that case he cannot be called the child of nature, but the grandchild. It is always best to have recourse to nature, which is replete with such abundance of objects, than to the productions of other masters, who learnt everything from her.

Make your faces so that they do not all have the same expression, as one sees with most painters, but give them different expression, according to age, complexion, and good or bad character.

The Medici created and destroyed me.

You grow in reputation like bread in the hands of a child.